« Forcer n’est pas violer ». Violences sexuelles faites aux femmes dans un quartier défavorisé de Port-VilaPour remédier aux violences physiques et sexuelles faites aux femmes au Vanuatu, des actions de sensibilisation, principalement financées par des bailleurs de fonds étrangers, ont été mises en place dans cet archipel mélanésien. Le milieu urbain constitue un espace privilégié pour la diffusion des messages de prévention, non seulement en raison des moyens de transport et de communication, mais aussi parce que l’image de la ville est perçue comme associée à la modernité, au désordre et à l’insécurité. Des résistances aux messages des organisations de prévention se font jour car leurs conceptions du viol, de la justice et du droit véhiculent d’autres valeurs et représentations de la personne que celles de la plupart des hommes et des femmes auprès desquelles elles interviennent. Elles prônent en l’occurrence un changement profond des rapports de genre et mettent l’accent sur la victime plutôt que sur les relations familiales.]]>Alice Servyhttp://journals.openedition.org/jso/7813
2017-12-20Sikret Fren: economic costs and moral values in a friendship ritual in Honiara, Solomon IslandsThis article analyses the case of Sikret Fren, a like-for-like gift exchange ritual organised by the members of the Anglican church of Gilbert Camp, an illegal settlement on the outskirts of Honiara, Solomon Islands. The objects exchanged, the people involved, and their relationships are discussed according to Gregory’s analytical opposition between Gift and Commodity. The resulting categorization of people, objects, and relationships is looked at from the perspective of the Domestic Moral Economy developed by Peterson & Taylor. The article locates Sikret Fren in relation to the cultural, historical, geographical, and socio-economic context in which it was developed; illustrates the rationale behind the reciprocal transactions of identical gifts between ritual friends; and suggests that urban and peri-urban settlers use their cultural creativity in reaction to the moral and economic challenges caused by the incompatibilities between their values and their material conditions.]]>Rodolfo Maggiohttp://journals.openedition.org/jso/7796
2017-12-20Haosgel: Kinship, class and urban transformationsIn Honiara, Solomon Islands, middle-class households routinely include young unmarried girls who hail from the villages to work as domestic help (haosgel in Solomon Islands Pijin) for their kin. Using data gathered in Honiara over the last 15 years, and more recently in 2015, the paper explores what is it to be a young haosgel in Honiara today while focusing on a set of issues that are central to the life of these young women: the power and transformation of kinship; the relationship between urban life and domesticity, and the link between agency, gender and resistance. Arguing that the presence of house girls contributes to the establishment of the middle-class, I seek to understand how these young women engage a complex situation in which their urban relatives, usually wealthier than their own parents, act out kinship while playing boss. ]]>Christine Jourdanhttp://journals.openedition.org/jso/7905
2017-12-20Is Music a “Safe Place”? The Creative and Reactive Construction of Urban Youth through Reggae Music (Port Vila, Vanuatu)With the increasing urbanization and rapid industrial development of Port-Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, certain forms of poverty and social fragility have emerged. These changes are also reflected in urban music practices, which play a crucial role in the lives of many young people. Music is one of the ways in which youth can address marginalization. With the possibilities afforded by a number of associations, which provide musical instruments, classes and rehearsal studios, music has become more accessible to the young. It is a leisure activity with educational aspects, a means of socialization beyond social and cultural borders. It also cements networks between musicians that enrich or replace former family and community ties. Finally music offers opportunities for public expression, peaceful political demands, dreams of freedom, etc. Studying these roles of music as forms of agency for young people can shed light on many aspects of their lives in the city of Port-Vila today.]]>Monika Sternhttp://journals.openedition.org/jso/7852
2017-12-20Family relationships in town are brokbrok: Food sharing and “contribution” in Port Vila, VanuatuUnder-educated and under-employed young men in Port Vila, Vanuatu’s capital city, frequently refer to the “empty saucepan”. This is an idiom they use to reflect some of the social problems experienced in urban Vanuatu today; high cost of living, alienation from access to agricultural land, high rates of unemployment and financial insecurity. Yet the “empty saucepan” also speaks to specific concerns surrounding shifts in family relationships, often produced and maintained through a system of sharing of food. As this paper will show, in Freswota, one of Port Vila’s residential communities, families face difficulties balancing their incomes with obligations to give and receive. As such, some urban families are excluding people, those who are seen as consuming without contributing, from eating their food. This article considers some of the constraints of urban living, and what influence the emic notion of “contribution”, in a context of neo-liberal capitalism, is having on inter-generat...]]>Daniela Kraemerhttp://journals.openedition.org/jso/7850
2017-12-20Demand-sharing and fences: Aspects of the new Port Vila householdThis article addresses certain aspects of town life in the capital of Vanuatu. In my most recent fieldwork in 2010 and 2014 I have been investigating household economy and aspects of social organization in the settlements that rapidly spring up around the town of Port Vila. I will present one particular feature of these settlements as a test case for revisiting the long debate about Melanesian reciprocity, demand sharing and gift. Notably, in many households people set up a little store, from which kin and friends in the neighborhood can buy their household supplies. Like the household itself, the store is typically fenced off and barred in – not directly from fear of theft, but as a defense against aggressive demand-sharing and envy. My point will be that people in Port Vila now tend to use the store economy as a way of protecting the value of sharing from the too intruding world of relatives and neighbors. ]]>Knut Riohttp://journals.openedition.org/jso/7901
2017-12-20Respek and Other Urban Vila KeywordsTelling urban migration stories, Tanna island residents of Port Vila’s settlements commonly use a number of keywords to describe life in town. I follow the “keyword” method of cultural analysis to approach island appreciation of urban experience. In recorded interviews, respek (respect) was one notably frequent term. Sharpening ethnic and gender identity politicking nearly everywhere has significantly boosted the term’s prominence, including in socially complex post-colonial Melanesian towns. Tanna migrants bemoan respect’s absence but they evoke it constantly to explain conflict and disappointment. I also consider other common urban Bislama keywords that circulate in talk about urban reality including sekiuriti (security), mobael (both telephones and Vanuatu’s military force), noes (noise), jalus (jealousy), and fri (free, freedom). Keywords unlock instructive views of emergent Melanesian urbanism.]]>Lamont Lindstromhttp://journals.openedition.org/jso/7849
2017-12-20Urban MelanesiaIn the 1970s, ethnographers Hal and Marlene Levine

“rarely heard Papua New Guineans say a kind word about their towns. They complained of how expensive it was to live in the towns, and of the violence there, and of the danger and difficulties involved in living amid so many strangers” (Levine and Levine, 1979: 1).

A decade earlier, a Port Moresby resident likewise described his town as “a rubbish place, there’s always trouble and too much drinking and fighting” (Rew, 1974: v). Now fifty years later, Melanesians continue to complain about urban living even though, during these years, Melanesian cities have transformed from colonial towns into national centers. Urban grievances from Vanuatu are typical. Soarum, who has lived many years in Port Vila since leaving Tanna, his home island, characteristically disparages life in town:

“Vila, if you don’t work you don’t eat. If you don’t eat, and live with nothing, this isn’t good. You have no energy, no power... When people leave their homes...